Category Archives: Made me smile

I’ve been a huge Muppets fan straight since childhood, so needless to say, I’ve been more than a little excited in these past couple of weeks leading up to the release of The Muppets tonight. I’ve been doing some excellent prep work, too:

And now today, while preparing to do a rather generic “made me smile” post about the Muppets, I came across something that seriously made me smile. In conjunction with the official Muppets site, Disney has created a website for an online video project called The Never-Ending Mahna Mahna Phenomahna. It invites viewers to record their own version of them saying/singing/shouting “Mahna Mahna”, which it then adds to a never-ending loop of people singing “Mahna Mahna” with the original muppets spliced in between. The loop currently includes lots of average folks, and some fun celebrity drop-ins, too, including Jason Segel, Sarah Silverman, Bret McKenzie, Ken Jeong, and more. Oh, and me, it includes me.

I can’t embed it, unfortunately, but click here to see me make a fool of myself singing “Mahna Mahna”. AND, if you want to waste 3 minutes doing something fun, click on the button below my video that says “Join This One” and join my Mahna Mahna chain!

Want something to tell me in the comments other than how dorky my video is? Tell me about your love for the Muppets, your favourite Muppet, or your favourite Muppets song!

A few days ago I returned home after an amazing two-week trip to Alberta. The entire vacation was filled with “made me smile” moments, and I might share more of those in future posts.

On the second last day of my trip, my best friend and I spent the afternoon in Canmore, one of the most lovely little towns I’ve ever visited. Every which way you turn you’re surrounded by mountains. It’s truly magical. So while my friend and I were browsing through some cute gift shops, I noticed the most smile-worthy little notebook, pictured below:

It’s hard not to smile when reading a list of so many perfect things. Many of the items on this notebook would be on my happy list, too, but one run of five in a row particularly jumped out at me: ice cream sundaes, a good book, a cup of tea, a bubble bath, blue skies.

So I’m cheating and picking those five things…but still, I ask you: What is the one thing you think of that always makes you smile?

As I try to breathe some new life into this blog (First step: redesign! I’m loving my new theme, and I hope you all do, too!), I’ve been trying to open my mind to new things that I might want to write about here and share with the world. One thing I’m always in search of, both online and off, are things that make me smile. I’m the kind of person that can easily let stress and worries get the best of me, so one of the ways I keep that under control is by focusing on finding things that make me smile, no matter how big or how small. To help spread some more happiness out into the world, I thought I’d start a regular blog feature where I can share things that “made me smile”, and I hope that they’ll help add some more smiles to your day, too.

For my inaugural “made me smile” post, I wanted to share my new favourite YouTube video meme, what I’m calling “The Disney Surprise”. Apparently there are tons of videos on YouTube featuring parents surprising their kids with trips to either Walt Disney World or Disneyland. Most of these videos feature the parents telling the kids about the trip at home on the day they’re leaving, in the car on the way to the airport, or, in one of them, as they’re driving through the Walt Disney World gates. The sheer joy on these kids’ faces and their often priceless reactions make me smile so hard, and I want to share my top 3 favourites with you:

1. Lily’s Disneyland Surprise

Lily’s video was the first of these videos that I watched, and it not only made me smile, but it made me cry a bit, too. Lily’s reaction once she figures out her big birthday surprise is incredibly sweet and heartwarming.